And MPs on Twitter ban: We shall fight them on the beaches - and in the House of Commons...

The spirit of Winston Churchill was recently invoked by MPs battling a terrifying threat to their freedom.

Admittedly, it wasn't quite the same kind of implacable foe that was faced down by the cigar-chomping wartime premier. Instead, this threat took the form of a risk that MPs might be banned from tweeting in the Commons.

Winston Churchill, WWII leader and Twitter advocate?Photo: United Nations Information Office, New York

So where does Churchill come into this? MP Kevin Brennan said Twitter's thrifty character limit upheld the tradition of succinct, punchy sloganeering that stretched back to Winston Churchill himself.

Brennan said: "There is nothing new in political communication in trying to get a message across in a pithy, memorable way, as Twitter enables us to do. In fact, I think it was a certain Winston Churchill who said: 'Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.'

"If that statement was issued as a tweet, it would leave 66 of the 140 characters available on Twitter still to play with. That goes to show that those who want to fight the onslaught of technology on the beaches will find that the tide is turning against them."

You have to wonder what Churchill would have done had Twitter existed during that time of conflict. Perhaps the great Prime Minister would have considered the message complete in itself and left the 66 characters spare for retweets.

Who knows how his measured words would have been met by the Twitterverse, had it existed. Perhaps #GoWinston would have been a trending topic. Or might his pudgy fingers have been moved to include a hashtag to further stir British spirits? Alas, we will never know.

But not every MP was in support of the brave new world of communications technology. Sir Alan Haselhurst said: "I am aware that it will give me a good chance of becoming the leading candidate for the 'dinosaur of the year' award," and added: "If it appears that we are being prompted from outside - which is entirely possible if handheld devices are produced in the House - our reputation will decline."

Damage the reputation of MPs? If only such a thing were possible...

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